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what have i gotten myself into

I realize that I have not written in a while, however, even I was shocked when I saw the date of my last post. I briefly started another blog, which I have since abandoned. The intent was to blog just on post-adoption related issues. I quickly realized that since I live and breathe adoption issues daily the exercise of blogging was not as therapeutic as I had hoped it would be. So, I’m back.

I ordered my textbooks for one of my upcoming classes. As I read over them after they arrived I started to feel the excitement of what was to come. That butterfly in my tummy feeling lasted about 12 hours. It abruptly ended today when I downloaded the class sylilbi. I quickly scanned the required reading and then gasped out loud when I saw the writing requirements for the class. As an undergraduate I was happy to have read the required chapter prior to getting to class. Well, it seems at the graduate level, just doing the reading isn’t enough. You have to write a one page summary typed and double spaced detailing the power points of what you read. Don’t get me started on the book review and final paper that need to be written in APA format. I really may have been deluding myself into thinking I can do this. I was told to expect to spend 3 hours outside of class for every hour in class. I failed to take into account that my classes meet for 3 hours each 1x per week. Thus I should be figuring on 9 hours weekly x2. Will I never see another episode of Desperate Houswives? What about Brothers and Sisters? Now comes the part where I start to question the wisdom of embarking on the pursuit of a graduate degree. I’ve become pretty comfortable as an underachiever. I enjoy working 28 hour weeks. Once grad school is finished I’ll be forced into full time employment just in order to pay off my loans. Yikes, no more afternoons napping or at the gym. I might have to look at the Prime Time lineup for Fall before I purchase the books for my second class.

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3 thoughts on “what have i gotten myself into”

Not sure if I did the math right, but I think I concluded you are taking two classes at a time, which may be a legitimate reason for saying “what have I gotten myself into?”. This moves you into the middle tier between the “permanent” grad student that can take 10 years completing their coursework and thesis as though its really just a hobby and the full time grad student who wraps it up in a year and goes on to make the big bucks. Oh, wait, I must have been thinking of a field other than social work when I wrote that last part.

I wouldn’t let the contrast with undergraduate work discourage you. You’ll have the benefit of maturity and of knowing from your work experience why you’re spending time covering the material and how it applies to the real world. I found this made all the difference in going back to grad school after working for a while. Yes the material was harder and the expectations higher, but the relevance was clearer. It was a race with a strategy and not just a punishing marathon, which pretty well describes my undergrad experience. It was also neat to be able to challenge the professors occasionally, and ask why a principle being presented didn’t seem to hold in my particular experience of the real world; no way to have that credibility as an undergrad!

Keep your chin up! It’s a good thing you are doing and it might even turn out to be fun.